FOOTBALLERS and secrets go hand in hand. On a sporting level, that's often a necessity. Many professional sports people truly believe the old adage that what happens in the dressing room, stays there.

It is perfectly legitimate for people to spill the beans on trivia such as who spends the longest time in the shower and other rubbish like that.

Arguments and fights carry a different agenda and in any case they happen all the time.

Away from the pitch, the wrong kind of publicity can cause serious damage to clubs and individual players. In exceptional circumstances, it can even end a person's career.

That is one reason I'm glad that, although I once shot a man, it never made it into the papers.

Let's go back to the Everton Christmas party of 1992.

Our Christmas gatherings were always held at the Conti’, in the city centre, the frequently favoured venue of Everton and Liverpool players at any time of the year. The main attraction was simple: the best looking women were always to be found there.

They were darlings. On any given Tuesday night, you'd be hard pressed to find more gorgeous women anywhere.

A lot of the girls seemed to be there for one reason only – to ensnare a footballer.

To be fair, a lot of the time the players didn't take much catching. Why would they?

Our Christmas parties were always fancy dress affairs. If you didn't arrive in a costume, you didn't get in. It had been that way for years.

During the course of the evening my fellow midfielder John Ebbrell kept on sneaking up to me and slyly punching me before running off. I was dressed as Dennis The Menace.

In drinking terms, 'Ebbo' was considered a bit of a softie, and I suppose he thought that taking a few playful punches at me was his best chance of winding me up.

It must have been getting towards one in the morning when he punched me for the last time – quite hard actually – in the side of the head.

As Ebbo ran off, my brother Billy said to me: “He's out of order, Mark. Go and sort him out.”

I was quite drunk by that time, having been on it since two o'clock that afternoon, so I'd been knocking back the booze for nearly 11 hours solid. As I turned to go after Ebbo, I crashed into this huge bloke, dressed as a cowboy, who was standing nearby.

I later found out the John Wayne look-a-like was Dave Watson's next-door neighbour.

He was enormous and his costume was accurate right down to the holster and gun – a replica, obviously, fitted up to work as a water pistol or cap-gun.

That's what I assumed, anyway, as I yanked it out of the holster and staggered away looking for Popeye – aka John Ebbrell.

There were three different bar areas in the Conti and I assumed he'd be skulking in the corner of one of them.

But there was no sign of him in the first bar, nor the second. I walked into the third and still no Ebbo. But Neville Southall was propping up the bar and deep in conversation with Barry Horne, who was dressed as The Pope. His costume was the full works.

“You seen Ebbo?” I asked Barry. “No, why?” he responded. I waved the gun in front of him and Nev and said: “Because he's going to get some of this...“

We all fell about laughing. Barry must also have assumed it was going to fire only water. “Why don't you shoot The Pope?” he then suggested.

I can't quite recall whether he raised his arms slightly or not, but we were in very close proximity, a foot or two apart at most.

At that moment I'd forgotten all about Ebbo. I raised the gun, aimed it straight at the centre of The Pope's chest and pulled the trigger.

The noise was staggering, unbelievable. And as this bang reverberated around the bar, we were all stunned to see a massive flash of fire shoot from the barrel and Barry, who took a direct hit, was flung backwards.

It was a real gun! There'd been a bullet in the chamber. I'd shot one of my teammates at point-blank range in the chest.

The saving mercy – and thank God for it – was that the bullet was a blank, designed to crumple and ignite on impact rather than explode.

Still, Barry was knocked back, and he was on fire. His robes were burning and it was only the rapid intervention of one of our mates, Roy Wright, that stopped an even more serious situation unfolding.

He chucked a pint over Barry to put out the flames.

The shock and amazement I felt as we watched Barry's chest being extinguished is hard to describe.

Everyone else who saw what happened was equally stunned. I don't think anyone even managed to say anything at all about it until the following morning – it was that unreal.

I got into training early as usual. Needless to say, we were all badly hungover and all the talk among the players was about the shooting of the Pope.

Barry hadn't come in. I was starting to get worried when he finally arrived, about 20 minutes late. He had his papal tunic in his hands. He threw it on the floor at my feet, looked me straight in the eye and said: “F*****g hell, Wardy, I thought you'd killed me last night. I was only joking when I said you should shoot the Pope!”

That broke the ice and the lads fell about laughing their nuts off.

THERE was a massive hole in Barry's costume. That one certainly wasn't going back to the shop.

He then pulled his T-shirt up to reveal a huge bruise on his chest, caused by the impact of the bullet.

And just as he was displaying his wounds, Ebbo walked into the dressing room, oblivious to what had happened the night before.

When he heard that I'd actually been looking for him, he realised he'd had a lucky escape.

Thinking about it later, I realised that if I'd caught up with John, the whole thing could have ended with dire consequences.

Knowing how I was at that time – impulsive, diving into situations without thinking, doing stuff first and putting my brain into action later – I would probably have wrestled him to the ground, held the gun to his ear or temple, and pulled the trigger.

I would have expected to give him a fright with an earful of water or a loud 'BANG!' from the cap.

But I might actually have scarred him for life or blinded him.

Apparently, as I'd dashed away from 'John Wayne' after nicking his weapon, he'd shouted after me not to shoot the gun under any circumstances. I hadn't heard him.

What would the public have made of that incident if it had ever been reported in the tabloids?